The Lovereading4Kids comment

A satisfying, original story of family and growing up. Sasha’s home life is complicated: her father died suddenly when she and her twin brother Sean were very young and her granny thinks Mum should concentrate all her attention on her kids, so is bound to react when she hears Mum is engaged to one of their teachers, a much younger man. And what will Sasha’s friends say? Sasha often takes refuge in a beautiful empty old house, but trying to impress an older boy she suddenly finds her beloved Blossom House is the venue for a teen party. The plot is incident-packed and Sasha’s emotional journey equally interesting. This is a rewarding story for young readers. ~ Andrea Reece

Synopsis

Cherry Blossom Dreams by Gwyneth Rees

Sometimes, something happens in your life that changes everything. When Sasha was six, her dad died suddenly and the world changed forever. Now she's twelve, it feels like things are changing all the time: her twin brother hardly talks to her any more, her mum's dating a teacher from school, her best friend Lily keeps going on about boys ...and Sasha doesn't feel ready for any of it. Why can't things just stay the same?

The one place she can escape to is Blossom House, her secret place - an old, echoey, overgrown, beautiful, empty mansion, where the only thing that changes is the weather and the flowers in the garden. There's just one problem: it isn't hers. And even a house can have secrets ...

About the Author

Gwyneth Rees was born in Leicester in 1968, and moved to Glasgow at the age of six. She studied medicine at Glasgow University and qualified as a doctor in 1990. She now works as a child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist and has lived and worked in various places, including Birmingham and London.

Gwyneth's interest in writing has been constant since her childhood when she was an avid reader of Enid Blyton and wrote her first "book" in an exercise jotter at the age of ten. (It featured four children trying to solve a mystery about sheep rustlers on the Isle of Skye!) As a medical student she went on writing workshops during the holidays, which fuelled her desire to be published.